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Miniatures Adventure => Future Wars => Sci-Fi Small Skirmish Games => Topic started by: Redshank on May 28, 2024, 10:13:12 PM
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As the title says - looking for recommendations for a skirmish game that could handle up to say a couple of squads a side. Vehicles not strictly required.
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Have you tried Stargrave?
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Ones I've played include
5 Parsecs From Home - best campaign system, fast combat. My favourite of these overall
Mars: Code Aurora - good system. My favourite combat system
Enderain - Gives a good game and best system in how it handles NPCs
Stargrave - my least favourite. Not a bad game but the others all have something that makes them stand out by comparison
All IMHO. of course, others may well differ.
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Rogue Planet is probably the best sci-fi game I've played. It's very flexible: you build your own troop types, and they can be expressed as individuals or units (with individual figures acting as 'hit points'). It can handle vehicles too. It's geared to a kind of science-fantasy game (psychic powers, power weapons, etc.), but it can handle 'harder' stuff as well.
The same author's The Battlefield is also excellent (modern, but works for 'hard' sci-fi too). It might be slightly bigger-scale than you're looking for, as each player would normally have several 'squads' (although they'd be five figures, IIRC, rather than 7-14, so the numbers might be right). There's a good review here (http://deltavector.blogspot.com/2012/05/battlefield-miniature-modern-warfare.html); the game's heavily influenced by computer games, but is great fun and highly absorbing.
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Fistful of Lead Bigger Battles would fit the bill.
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I would recomend 'Xenos rampant'
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Thanks all for the great recommendations. Several games here I had not heard of.
Apologies for the lack of much initial detail on what I am after - I want to do something in the 2300AD setting, which is on the harder end of SF, although with plasma and laser weapons. One of the main alien factions has some strange psychology that will affect initiative, but I am expecting to have to houserule something for that.
Looking forward to checking out these suggestions.
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Try this one One-hour Skirmish Wargames: Fast-play Dice-less Rules for Small-unit Actions from Napoleonics to Sci-Fi. https://www.amazon.com/One-Hour-Skirmish-Wargames-Small-Unit-Napoleonics/dp/1526700042
Simple but quite effective and flexible.
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Xenos Rampant could fit your bill.
Each "unit" has a strength of 5 or 10 wounds, which can be 1 model, 10 models or anything in-between (makes no difference to dice rolled etc).
You can customise units with various rules to simulate different skills, xenos abilities etc, and can use vehicles if you want, but works without them.
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As the title says - looking for recommendations for a skirmish game that could handle up to say a couple of squads a side. Vehicles not strictly required.
Hum, Rogue Stars, Warhammer40k: Rogue Trader, Savage Worlds/Savage Showdown.
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Try this one One-hour Skirmish Wargames: Fast-play Dice-less Rules for Small-unit Actions from Napoleonics to Sci-Fi. https://www.amazon.com/One-Hour-Skirmish-Wargames-Small-Unit-Napoleonics/dp/1526700042
Simple but quite effective and flexible.
I´ll second that and you have a dedicated scenario book as well:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sci-fi-Skirmish-Scenarios-Small-unit-Favourite/dp/1526788489
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I´ll second that and you have a dedicated scenario book as well:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sci-fi-Skirmish-Scenarios-Small-unit-Favourite/dp/1526788489
And thirded! It's a great game - very fast and smooth-playing. The Dan Dare-ish scenario in the book is terrific. I was thinking of it more as an 'individual' skirmish game rather than a unit-based one (each figure moves and fights individually, like Mutants & Death Ray Guns or whatever, rather than as units), but it probably fits the bill perfectly.
I'd add two more recommendations:
- FUBAR (https://fubarwargames.wordpress.com/downloads/)(which is free and has lots of variants)
- Pulp Alley, which is very flexible and versatile, and a great game. Like Rogue Planet, it has mechanisms that allow 'individuals' to be made up of several figures, so you can scale it up and down very easily. It's an 'adventure' game rather than a combat simulation, but it's brilliant.
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I'm pretty partial to Grimdark Future: Firefight by OnePageRules (https://www.onepagerules.com/games/grimdark-future-firefight) myself.
Model agnostic (though clearly a 40K alternative), free, and simple to learn and play. A small skirmish of about 10 models a side can be played in about an hour or so.
The first time my mate and I used this ruleset, we were able to play two games in one evening. Which is quite remarkable, considering our meandering conversations during games ::)
Highly recommended :)
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I´ll second that and you have a dedicated scenario book as well:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sci-fi-Skirmish-Scenarios-Small-unit-Favourite/dp/1526788489
I found the scenario book very generic. I could have saved my money by keeping the Grant Scenarios for wargamers and just transferring it to a Sci-Fi setting.
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The only other recommendation I have not already mentioned would be Shoot People in Space, which is in what I like to call "border patrol" scale- a full sized army is about six squads of three models each, a couple of personalities, and a few light vehicles (bikes/quads/jeeps), with space for a single walking robot.
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Stargrave? Pulp Alley? 5 Parsecs from Home?
These are Model-vs-Model games, not Squad vs. Squad games. OP, I recommend you take a close look at any or the rulesest mentioned before making a blind purchase to ensure it is meeting your criteria.
That said, a few squads vs a few other squads and maybe a vehicle of two?
Some thoughts with reviews:
- Xeno Rampant
https://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2023/02/review-xenos-rampant-osprey-games.html
- Rogue Planet
https://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2020/07/review-rogue-planet-bombshell.html
- Restless Stars
Battle actually, not a review: https://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2023/02/restless-stars-operation-hemlock.html
- Tomorrow's War
https://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2017/03/review-tomorrows-warforce-on-force.html
Some I have not played and have no reviews of:
- 5Core- Nordic Weasel- (IIRC)
- Fistful of Lead- Bigger Battles
- Gruntz (15mm)
- Stargrunt II - I played it a long time ago, so no review
- One Page Rules
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I've been using several sets not mentioned:
- Chain Reaction [free]
- 5 Kilometers from Leipzig [free]
- One-Hour Skirmish Wargames
- Neil Thomas "Wargaming an Introduction" has a simple skirmish game
- Battlespace
- "In Country: Recon" is excellent and [free], here: https://esspod.shop/products/inx-rulebooks
It is a contemporary combat game.
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A couple of indy options are
Planet 28
Space Weirdos
Both are toolkits and you build/develop your own characters
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... One of the main alien factions has some strange psychology that will affect initiative, but I am expecting to have to houserule something for that.
Beat on the gropos until they shake off their standard stupor? Unlike which other army? :D
I'm assuming you don't need Easy E's suggestion to do your homework, but that his reviews will be a useful part thereof. A search of AARs here will add greatly, though occasionally frustrating on particular details you may want.
Unless, of course, you are a dweeb such as moi, burning large stacks of lucre for the 'oh, I really will give that a go, someday.'
To EE's benefit...
Doug
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Well I have most of the rulesets mentioned in this thread and I find myself facilitating between more than a few of them. :(
This is not helped by the fact that I am a solo gamer and the only drive to use a set is my own, I think that sometimes a bit of peer pressure can be a good thing?
The sets I flip-flop between in no particular order are:
W40K 3rd edition
One Page - Grimdark and Grimdark Firefight
Necromunda - 2nd ed I think
One hour skirmish and wargames rules
FFOL bigger battles and other titles
Space Station Zero
Xenos and Lion Rampant (2nd)
Stargrave
Zona Alpha and solo version
Many, many others.......ad nauseum
I also have Deathship one but have not played it yet.
The ones that lend themselves easiest to solo play are 40K 3rd because I have played them so long the rules are mostly invisible to me, if that makes sense but its very setting makes me drift back into the 40K orbit all the time as do One pages Grimdark and GD firefight (All I play with random drawn activation), when sometimes I really would like a more general scifi feel. Stargrave has to-many special rules and I don't like D20's (also see Space Station Zero), and I always end up restating to 40K and then playing the Stargrave mission with no magic ....
Xenos Rampant is fun but again lots of potential special rules and I find the activation rolls a bit of pain.
FFOL bigger battles I also like but is not so easy to adapt for solo unfortunately because of the activation cards :-[, one hour skirmish I also like but dealing both packs of cards is also a bit of a bummer.
In short I have tried many rules and I like bits of lots of them but not all of any one ruleset and oddly 40K 3rd keeps resurfacing as it is simple if you ignore codex creep, however no matter how hard I try it still is a bit to-40K based for me for use as general set of sci-fi wargaming rules.
All of this nonsense may not be much help to you unfortunately, and for this you have my apologies, but at least you are not alone :(
Glen
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As the title says - looking for recommendations for a skirmish game that could handle up to say a couple of squads a side. Vehicles not strictly required.
One Page Rules Grimdark Future Firefight.
https://www.onepagerules.com/games/grimdark-future-firefight
Very quick to play. Not a lot of special rules. Miniature agnostic. And if you want to scale up games you can use the larger scale rules with almost no new rules added
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A couple not mentioned so far, as far as I can see, that would be worth a look are Mars: Code Aurora and Enderain.
Mars: Code Aurora is designed as PvP but the activation mechanism makes solo play quite easy.
Enderain is designed for 1 - 4 players.
They are both more 5 Parsecs or Stargrave than 40K or Xenos Rampant.
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Five Parsecs from Home: Tactics is now out, since the posting of this thread.
It handles a few squads & vehicles per side, with a character or two leading. Playable solo, co-op, or PvP, with campaign rules for all modes of play.
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Blckout (https://www.blkoutgame.com/products/blkout-digital-rules)?
Killwager (https://enemyspottedstudios.com.au/products/kw-skullcore-rulebook)?
They have very small units, though I don't quite know how many units you can actually have.
Same problem with Human Interface: Proxy war... (https://www.myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-human-interface-proxy-war-core-rules-starter-set-390342)
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BLKOUT is pretty fun. Typically your force is 3 units consisting of between 1 and 4 figs each Folks can add a 'Handler' (an individual who tends to have some specialized skill/equipment) or a Duster (large mech) if desired. Plays quickly and is pretty interactive throughout the turn.
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Team games of FoL can easily handle up to two squads of 8-12 figures pretty easily, even if you don’t wish to use FoL BB. If you want even more figs on the table just add more cards to the activation deck. FoL always suggest 5 figs or units to a player but I often play with 2-3 times the figs per player as long as they are mostly uniform in traits orLots of grunts. It isnt hard.